ISIS is holding more than 100,000 civilians as 'human shields' in Mosul's Old City

Geneva (AFP) - The UN said Friday that Islamic State group jihadists may be holding more than 100,000 Iraqi civilians as human shields in the Old City of Mosul.

A tank of the Iraqi Army's 9th Armored Division at the frontline in the al-Zanjili district in Mosul, June 10, 2017. Thomson Reuters

Geneva (AFP) - The UN said Friday that Islamic State group jihadists may be holding more than 100,000 Iraqi civilians as human shields in the Old City of Mosul.

Iraqi forces are fighting to retake Mosul from IS, after the jihadist group overran the city in 2014, imposing its brutal rule on its inhabitants.

The UN refugee agency's representative in Iraq, Bruno Geddo, said IS had been capturing civilians in battles outside of Mosul and had been forcing them into the Old City, one of the last parts of the city in their grip.

"More than 100,000 civilians may still be held in the Old City," Geddo told reporters in Geneva.

"We know that ISIS moved them with them as they left… locations where the fighting was going on," he said, using another acronym for IS, which is also known as Daesh or ISIL.

"These civilians are basically held as human shields in the Old City."

With virtually no food, water or electricity left in the area, the civilians are "living in an increasingly worsening situation of penury and panic," he said. "They are surrounded by fighting on every side."